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Apparently.
He swallowed hard to clear his throat. “I got out of the military because I saw too many bad things happen to kids. Too many broken kids in the world. Some broken because I couldn’t save them.”
Rachel fixed her gaze on him, and her eyes shimmered with tears.
Well, shit.
He cursed himself and reached for her to pull her into his arms for a comforting hug. “No,” she whispered. “Keep going. I want to hear this. If you want to tell me, that is.”
Jericho wasn’t at all sure he wanted to spill it, but it was hard to hold back with Rachel. Their past had given them a crapload of baggage. But a deep, forever intimacy, too. Holding back from her seemed like holding back from himself.
“I was investigating an asshole military guy who was recruiting young runaway girls for sex trafficking. Lots of agencies were involved, but since he was stationed at a base under my jurisdiction, I was the lead investigator.” Jericho took a much needed breath. “Bottom line, before I closed in on him, he fled the country with eight girls, all under the age of sixteen. And the girls just vanished, gobbled up in that shithole underworld.”
Rachel laid her hand on his arm. “I know you, so I know you did your best to find them.”
“Maybe,” he conceded. “But my so-called best was a big-assed failure, which means I failed the girls. Hard to live with that and then go back to the job I failed at. So, I left the military, and for whatever reason, Ruby saw enough in me to recruit me for Maverick Ops.”
“And you’ve saved so many people since then. Including me,” she added.
There it was again. That gratitude that Jericho felt he didn’t deserve. Part of him always felt there was way too much luck involved in crushing a threat, and he hated that luck played into any part of keeping Rachel safe.
She turned, fully facing him, so he was well aware her mouth was moving closer and closer to his. Well aware, too, that the kiss was coming.
Yet, it still knocked the wind out of him.
One touch of her mouth, and he was toast.
She made that sound, that dreamy hitch of pleasure that came deep from within her throat, and moving slowly. Ever so slowly. She stood, slipping her arm around him and pulling him to his feet.
Their mouths met.
So did their bodies.
And all the fiery heat broke loose.
He’d never had much willpower when it came to Rachel, and Jericho sure as hell didn’t want willpower kicking in now. He simply wanted to kiss her, hard and deep. Just like this. With her in his arms. With her body pressed to his.
Jericho went even deeper with the kiss, tasting her. Letting the need and the fire slide through him. Mercy. She knew how to rev him up and send him flying.
But then, he knew how to do the same to her.
That’s what you got when you spent months and months just making out before finally going all the way. Then, more months and months of having sex whenever they could manage it. Rachel knew his hot spots, and he knew hers.
And she played dirty.
She moved her clever mouth to his ear, flicking her tongue over his earlobe. Yeah, a definite hot spot so he went after her neck. Specifically the base of her throat where his mouth had spent plenty of time just driving her up, up, up.
Apparently, he hadn’t lost his touch because she groaned with pleasure and caught onto him, her hands gripping his back to pull him closer.
Jericho went closer.
And lower.
He kissed her from her neck to the front of her shirt. He lingered there a while, just stoking a fire that was already past the stoking stage. Still, he kissed her through the thin fabric, letting his breath add even more pleasure.
When that wasn’t enough, when their bodies were clamoring for more, he gave her more, too. He shoved up her top, pushed down the cups of her bra and reacquainted her nipples with his tongue.
More hot spots.
